I thought in my ignorance that Yacht word had an English origin and that yachting was born in England. I was wrong. It turns out that Yacht comes from Jacht. That's a Dutch word that means hunter and that's what they began to be: Very fast Navy Dutch boats to hunt pirates and transgressors on the shallow waters of Holland.

The full story:

"Yacht, from Dutch/Low German jacht meaning hunting or hunt, .. was originally defined as a light, fast sailing vessel used by the Dutch navy to pursue pirates and other transgressors around and into the shallow waters of the Low Countries.

They were also used for non-military governmental roles such as customs duties and delivering pilots to waiting ships. The latter use attracted the attention of wealthy Dutch merchants who began to build private yachts so they could be taken out to greet their returning ships.

Soon wealthy individuals began to use their "jachts" for pleasure trips. By the start of the 17th century "jachts" came in two broad categories—speel-jachts for sport and oorlog-jachts for naval duties.

By the middle of the century large "jacht" fleets were found around the Dutch coast and the Dutch states organised large 'reviews' of private and war yachts for special occasions, thus putting in place the groundwork for the modern sport of yachting.
..
Charles II of England spent part of his time in exile during the period of the Commonwealth of England in the Netherlands and became keen on sailing. He returned to England in 1660 aboard a Dutch yacht. During his reign Charles commissioned 24 Royal Yachts on top of the two presented to him by Dutch states on his restoration.

As the fashion for yachting spread throughout the English aristocracy, yacht races began to become common. Other rich individuals in Europe built yachts as the sport spread. Yachting therefore became a purely recreational form of sailing with no commercial or military function (see, for example, the Cox & King yachts at the beginning of the 20th Century), which still serves a broad definition of both the sport and of the vessel."

Back to the bathtube bow, even before those yachts, the Portuguese, between the XV and XVI century gradually changed the shape of the Caravela bow from its original shape, that comes from the Mediterranean tradition through the Arabs, from its more conventional shape to a bathtube bow shape. Many years ago I had read on an ancient treaty that the Caravela Bow should be well rounded to give a better ship and at the time I found that really odd. Well, not now

The posterior man of war and cargo ship, the Galeão (XVI and XVII centuries) also featured an even more pronounced bath tube bow:

Back to the word Yacht, it seems to be changing again of meaning. On the 50's and 60's yacht was a pleasure boat of some dimension, but a 40ft boat was already called a yacht, a small yacht but a yacht nonetheless. Now, at least in Europe, if someone is referring to his boat as a yacht and the boat has not more than 60ft, he is being pompous. The denomination of yacht seems to have been reserved now for large pleasure motorboats or sailing boats. Smaller ones are just called as sailing boats or motor boats.

Just a last post about Oysters regarding the last model, the 745 that shows clearly the direction in what regards the Hull evolution. Compared with the 655 it has the beam more brought aft, a more modern and efficient keel and a two rudder setup. Like the 665, it is a Rob Humphryes design. Very nice design in my opinion:

and only two hours later comes a GS 56, a beautiful performance cruiser that was substituted recently by the 54 on the GS line. Much nicer than that ugly cat, smaller and almost as fast

a post from the guys on that Grand Soleil:

"A quiet final night with no dramas.More quality time spent in the stern sauna with our ever present companion, Betty Swollocks, the crew member who I for one will most certainly not miss.

So, finally across the line at roughly 08:26:37 this morning, which works out at around 30 minutes short of 16 days from the start in Gran Canaria. Including the race yachts we are 13th of the 250+ starters, and depending on the handicapping will be first or second in class - not bad for a crew with the combined age of 468.

As promised, the whole crew finished in Tiddy's polyester black thongs (supplied, not owned by.................I think) . The official ARC photographer came out to meet us so by the time he's syndicated his photos, we could well be on the front cover of not only Yachting Monthly, but also Muscleboy, Nosh and various other top shelf publications .

A great sense of achievement and an unforgettable experience for us all,with many excellent memories and tales of derring-do. Tales that will doubtless be embellished and I suspect many of you may well will tire of them all too soon.

I speak for the whole crew in thanking Giles for inviting us and offer an especially big thank you to Shine for getting us her safely. We bent you a bit, broke a few parts and even tried to fill you with seawater, but you never faltered."

and after, close to an older 85ft older race boat, here it comes the first truly "cheap" boat, I mean a main market mass production boat, the Hanse 575, followed some hours later by two medium weight very expensive boats: Another Oyster, a 625 and a brand new Gunfleet 58. All are very recent boats, being the Oyster 625 2012 European boat of the year in the luxury class and the Gunfleet 58 is one of the nominated for this year contest in the same class.

and then it comes an Oyster 48, an old performance cruiser from the time Oyster built them. Ross Appleby and his 1989 Oyster made as usually a great ARC. The Oyster 48 is a Carl Schumacher design and a boat well in advance of its time, a 48ft that only weights 12 447 kg and has 41% of that weight in ballast.

Battling with it on the final of the transat and arriving only one hour later, the first 40ft performance cruiser and by far the less expensive boat till now (considering the price of a new boat), a British Pogo 12.50, Erick's syster ship boat. Has I have been saying, nothing with a price remotely similar to a Pogo can beat it on a Transat.

3 hours after the Pogo 12.50 finished a very interesting boat, an Axonite 69, a 2010 aluminium performance cruiser with a lifting keel. It is a design by Guide de Groot / Satellite yacht design and built by K&M Yachtbuilders, one of the best world's yacht aluminium shipyards.

Click on the orange dots on the boat for different views (first link):

Some hours later it comes a Discovery 55, a recent yacht, Oyster style. It was replaced recently by a 57. The Discovery managed to beat a very badly sailed TP 52 race boat.

But the most improbable boat to make a good transat was the one that arrived next, beating a 49ft fast catamaran, a Tournier Freydis 49, the one that come behind. It was a Acubens 656. Never heard about it? Well, the same with me. I made a search and found not much and what I found left me intrigued, at least at first. It is a steel boat built in Galicia and designed by Iñigo Echenique, also a Galician Naval engineer. Well, never heard about him either but it seems that Acubens 656 sails very well. Anyway I could not understand how a heavy steel boat could have this type or performance.

Well, there is a catch, it is not an heavy sailboat: it weights 39 500kg and carries 270m2 of sail upwind while that Oyster 655 that had arrived 1 day and 7 hours ahead weights 39000kg and has 263m2. For the little I could find about the Acubens 656 the interior is much more "naked" than the one of the Oyster so that should save some weight. Even so it is an impressive weight for a steel yacht: A middle weight yacht after all.

The Freydis 49 cat was also a surprise but for the negative. I know that this year seems to have been bad for cats (not a constant trade wind) but even so being beaten by a 40ft monohull performance cruiser (Pogo 12.50) by 10 hours? And the boat does not seem to have been badly sailed, after all is the 3rd cat finishing, after two 60fters and ahead of a much bigger Catana 58.

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